Save your tears for the truth
Everyone is looking at a different set of facts.
And its weird.
Because what you know determines how you feel,
But how you feel determines what you know.
If you don't feel comfortable with wanting to learn more, or maybe you're comfortable with the inaccuracies you've been told, you simply won't know anything more than you do now.
But that could mean you’re suffering under falsehoods. In my opinion, if you’re going to feel sad and angry, at least feel sad and angry about the truth. So my advice: Save your tears.
I want so badly to spread the news of how adoptees are not unwanted, how some birthparents searched frantically for their babies in the orphanages, how some birthparents have photos of their babies in the house...and share the nuances of the Hunan scandal, or even just tell people that the Hunan scandal happened and that trafficking happened all over China not just in Guangdong/Hunan. But you're playing with fire.
Some adoptive parents, due their own insecurities, hide information from their child. I've talked to so many college students who don't even know HOW they were adopted. They believe their parents flew overseas alone, but maybe in a group? They aren't sure if their parents went to the orphanage gate or met in a hotel room. They don't know the name of the agency or even the name of the orphanage they're from. Some believe their parents even paid for them, even though that's illegal and if that were the case, how did you get your legal citizenship papers and passport and other documentation you would need to fly to your home? You're on thin ice. Do you pop their bubble?
And if you do decide to say something, they may not even hear you. They may think you’re a lunatic or simply out to cause trouble. Some adoptive parents may even forbid them from speaking with you. Because you have "ideas."
Honestly, it's a journey best walked alone. You can't bring another person up to speed. They have to want to know. They have to dig for themselves.
If someone told me even a few years ago that adoption was affecting me, I would have laughed them off. I even remembering reading an article about how an adoptee went back to China and tons of birthfamilies came to see her and tell them their stories, hoping that she was their daughter. Many of these birthfamilies loved and missed their daughter so, so, so much...I exited the page. I thought that it was lying. A false article. I couldn't understand at that point in life how that could be true if everything I've ever been told about Chinese adoptions, male preference, and finding spots were also true.
So I do get it. I've been there. And maybe, some people will die, hanging on to lies. I've certainly wrapped my self-worth around one or two falsehoods. I have poems and letters that rest upon the underlying assumption I had a finding spot, that I was told the correct finding spot. They contain so much pain, but now seem so inaccurate.
Do you make peace with each step as you go? Make peace with your finding spot and supposed abandonment? Make peace with human trafficking? Make peace with the fact that every single story I've heard is completely different, that nothing fits a pattern, and that daughters were very much wanted and loved?
Depending on what you believe, you may feel that your birthmom abandoned you or disliked you for any number of reasons. Or maybe that your birthmom was tricked and now your anger is towards the traffickers. Or maybe that life is complicated and you're angry at the One Child Policy, corruption, and poverty.
Going to an adoptee meet-up is like walking into a kaleidoscope, because everyone believes a different version of the story, to varying degrees of actual truth. So no one wants to talk too deeply. Sometimes finding spots are still "real" for them. And all you can ever talk about is race. What do you know? We're all Asian. Let's talk about representation. Over and over and over and over again.
Disclaimer: I shouldn't have to put a disclaimer because this is my story, but I will just say this. Even if you go back to China, you may still be told more lies. At this point, I will only trust what my birthparents have to say: not the police, not the orphanage, and not any other person living in the village. There's also self-care considerations, that it's hard on adoptees to be confronted with a different version of the truth every day on the news, like it's our job to be unsettled all the time. At some point, some adoptees just want to hunker down on a story, just for peace of mind. It is likely many of us, me included, will never learn the truth. It's difficult to make peace with not knowing, because making peace sometimes translates to stagnant acceptance. I am actively trying to find my birthparents. I am actively seeking the truth. I just think the decision to accept an imperfect story should be actively made and not done because of blind acceptance. It breaks my heart to see adoptees languishing under misapprehensions about free-will in communist China, and how their mothers set them out to die, even when we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Now, we are hearing from our birthparents during birthparent searches. Especially with DNA, we are finally hearing their sides of the story. I may not know what happened to me, one of thousands of possibilities. It's like, we absolutely don't know which door I went through, but we absolutely know that though all babies were told they went through door A, this is false that they all went through it. We just don't know which of the other doors is correct for each. It's maddening.
And its weird.
Because what you know determines how you feel,
But how you feel determines what you know.
If you don't feel comfortable with wanting to learn more, or maybe you're comfortable with the inaccuracies you've been told, you simply won't know anything more than you do now.
But that could mean you’re suffering under falsehoods. In my opinion, if you’re going to feel sad and angry, at least feel sad and angry about the truth. So my advice: Save your tears.
I want so badly to spread the news of how adoptees are not unwanted, how some birthparents searched frantically for their babies in the orphanages, how some birthparents have photos of their babies in the house...and share the nuances of the Hunan scandal, or even just tell people that the Hunan scandal happened and that trafficking happened all over China not just in Guangdong/Hunan. But you're playing with fire.
Some adoptive parents, due their own insecurities, hide information from their child. I've talked to so many college students who don't even know HOW they were adopted. They believe their parents flew overseas alone, but maybe in a group? They aren't sure if their parents went to the orphanage gate or met in a hotel room. They don't know the name of the agency or even the name of the orphanage they're from. Some believe their parents even paid for them, even though that's illegal and if that were the case, how did you get your legal citizenship papers and passport and other documentation you would need to fly to your home? You're on thin ice. Do you pop their bubble?
And if you do decide to say something, they may not even hear you. They may think you’re a lunatic or simply out to cause trouble. Some adoptive parents may even forbid them from speaking with you. Because you have "ideas."
If someone told me even a few years ago that adoption was affecting me, I would have laughed them off. I even remembering reading an article about how an adoptee went back to China and tons of birthfamilies came to see her and tell them their stories, hoping that she was their daughter. Many of these birthfamilies loved and missed their daughter so, so, so much...I exited the page. I thought that it was lying. A false article. I couldn't understand at that point in life how that could be true if everything I've ever been told about Chinese adoptions, male preference, and finding spots were also true.
So I do get it. I've been there. And maybe, some people will die, hanging on to lies. I've certainly wrapped my self-worth around one or two falsehoods. I have poems and letters that rest upon the underlying assumption I had a finding spot, that I was told the correct finding spot. They contain so much pain, but now seem so inaccurate.
Do you make peace with each step as you go? Make peace with your finding spot and supposed abandonment? Make peace with human trafficking? Make peace with the fact that every single story I've heard is completely different, that nothing fits a pattern, and that daughters were very much wanted and loved?
Depending on what you believe, you may feel that your birthmom abandoned you or disliked you for any number of reasons. Or maybe that your birthmom was tricked and now your anger is towards the traffickers. Or maybe that life is complicated and you're angry at the One Child Policy, corruption, and poverty.
Going to an adoptee meet-up is like walking into a kaleidoscope, because everyone believes a different version of the story, to varying degrees of actual truth. So no one wants to talk too deeply. Sometimes finding spots are still "real" for them. And all you can ever talk about is race. What do you know? We're all Asian. Let's talk about representation. Over and over and over and over again.
Disclaimer: I shouldn't have to put a disclaimer because this is my story, but I will just say this. Even if you go back to China, you may still be told more lies. At this point, I will only trust what my birthparents have to say: not the police, not the orphanage, and not any other person living in the village. There's also self-care considerations, that it's hard on adoptees to be confronted with a different version of the truth every day on the news, like it's our job to be unsettled all the time. At some point, some adoptees just want to hunker down on a story, just for peace of mind. It is likely many of us, me included, will never learn the truth. It's difficult to make peace with not knowing, because making peace sometimes translates to stagnant acceptance. I am actively trying to find my birthparents. I am actively seeking the truth. I just think the decision to accept an imperfect story should be actively made and not done because of blind acceptance. It breaks my heart to see adoptees languishing under misapprehensions about free-will in communist China, and how their mothers set them out to die, even when we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Now, we are hearing from our birthparents during birthparent searches. Especially with DNA, we are finally hearing their sides of the story. I may not know what happened to me, one of thousands of possibilities. It's like, we absolutely don't know which door I went through, but we absolutely know that though all babies were told they went through door A, this is false that they all went through it. We just don't know which of the other doors is correct for each. It's maddening.
Comments
Post a Comment